HEY mambo... Mambo Italiano...

tonight was italian night. mom gave us a bit of money to do some grocery shopping on since she doesn't actually eat REAL food (a story all unto itself). And so tom and i very carefully planned out the perfect little meals, the goal being to cook three good meals a week and survive off of leftovers the remaining time. and tonight was "Italiano".

now tom is a quarter italian. he has also been extremely poor the entire time i've known him. and this being said, i have had his spegetti and meatballs before. it's tasty. it's traditional. he does it well. and most important... it's cheap. so tonight Tom decided and psyched himself all up to make his dish. and not just make it but MAKE it to impress the family. Tom loves to cook... it's true. anyone who knows him knows this. but more than just cooking tom loves to impress someone with his cooking. and so this gave him the perfect opportunity to do such and boy did he freaking knock it out of the park.

the sauce was amazing. huge cloves of garlic and onion... you could literally distinguish each ingredient as an individual and as a whole. each bit having a dominant part and yet each sharing to produce something bigger than itself. and the meatballs. amazing. big huge giant meatballs with such yummy flavor. the noodles were perfect and it came together ("come together right now"). i know some of you either make a mean spegetti or know someone who does and i have had some of these, but i assure you.. your spegetti would bow to what i partook tonight.

it was one of those meals that i imagined tasted like the scene from Chocolate where Juliette Binoche's character makes the birthday meal for Judi Dench's character and all the characters are falling over the food. it seems incredibly sensual as they eat and like they are about to keel over from how intense the flavors are in their mouths. or the scene from Big Night where everyone has eaten and is dancing around with joy and happy from the amazing 10 course meal they had.

it was one of those meals.

to make the evening even more amazing was my sister. erin has not been known for parting from her bed often, but the more we are here the more we create reason for her to want to get out of bed. and she's been great... joining us whenever she feels up to it. tonight though was different. tonight she joined us even though she was in intense pain. tom gave her the 15 minute warning before the meal was to be ready and 5 minutes later out rolls erin quietly to the couch. i noticed that she lay in her spot (when she's not in bed) and was particularly quiet and pained looking. a few minutes later tears were running down her face as her pain level was quite high. but she stayed out with us. she took some pills (some really good pills) and choose to eat dinner with us. since she wasn't up to sitting at the table... we brought the table to her at the couch and the three of us had this amazing little meal. erin complained it was too spicy but i think that was just to keep up the roll of not being completely happy with something ;)

earlier in the evening, tom had mentioned the idea of what we might do for dessert. we had run down the options - normal ice cream or maybe baking chocolate chip cookies or maybe... just maybe we could drive up to that little gelato shop we saw this weekend and get official italian ice cream to top the meal off just right. erin shoo-ed the idea, but god love tom he brought up again as we ate. erin's meds were kicking in and as she ate she began to really perk up. we finished our heavenly meal and were letting it digest a bit when good old tom put the idea out there one more time... and she bit. of course, we had to go just as we were (i was in my p.js.) and she wasn't getting out of the car. but it was a deal. so we loaded up the car (a slightly time consuming process) and drove up two exits to get some gelato. so worth it.

the sweets were definately good. but the memory of the night and the laughs and the classic dean martin playing in the background... that was priceless.